Baronets and Knights of the Bath, thirty pounds. Knights, twenty pounds. Esquires, ten pounds. Gentlemen of one hundred pounds per annum, five pounds. Lord Mayor, forty pounds. Aldermen Knights, twenty pounds. Citizens fined for Sheriffs, twenty pounds. Deputy Aldermen, fifteen pounds. Merchant Strangers, Knights, forty pounds. Common-council men, five pounds. Livery-men of the first twelve companies, and those that fined for it, five pounds. Livery-men of other companies, fifty shillings. Masters and wardens of those other companies, five pounds. Every one free of those companies, one pound. Every Freeman of other companies, ten shillings. Every Merchant that trades by sea, inhabiting in London, ten pounds. Every Merchant Stranger that trades within land, five pounds. Every English Merchant residing in the city of London, and not free, five pounds. Every English factor that dwells in London, and is not free of the city, forty shillings. Every stranger protestant, handy-craft trade, and artificer, two shillings. Every papist stranger and handy-craft, four shillings. Every widow, a third part, according to her husband's degree. Every King's Serjeant, twenty-five pounds. Every Serjeant at Law, twenty pounds. Every one of the King's, Queen's, and Prince's Council, twenty pounds. Every Doctor of Civil Law, and Doctor of Physick, ten pounds. Every Bishop, sixty pounds. Every Dean, forty pounds. Every Canon, twenty pounds. Every Prebend, twenty pounds. Every Archdeacon, fifteen pounds. Every Chancellor and every Commissary, fifteen pounds. Every Parson or Vicar at one hundred pounds per annum, five pounds. Every office worth above one hundred pounds per annum, to be referred to a committee, to be rated every man that may spend fifty pounds per annum, thirty shillings. Every man that may spend twenty pounds per annum, five shillings. Every person that is above sixteen years of age, and doth not receive alms, and is not formerly rated, shall pay six-pence per pole. THE CURATES CONFERENCE; OR, A DISCOURSE BETWIXT TWO SCHOLARS; Both of them relating their hard Condition, and consulting which Way to mend it. Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis. [From a Quarto, containing thirteen pages, printed in the Year 1641.] Master Poorest. WELL met, good Master Needham. Master Needham. I am heartily glad to see you here, how have you canvased the course of the world this many a day, good Master Poorest. Mr. P. Good Sir, take the pains as to walk into St. Paul's church, and we will confer a little before sermon begins. Mr. N. With all my heart, for I must not so suddenly leave your company, having not enjoyed your society this long time. Mr. P. Good Sir, tell me, are you resident in Cambridge, in the college still; I make no question but the university, and your merits, have preferred you to some good fellowship, parsonage, or the like good fortune. Mr. N. Alas! good Master Poorest, this is not an age for to bestow livings and preferments freely; it is now, as it was said long ago: Si mihil attuleris, ibis, Homere, foras. I tell you, it is a pity to see, how juniors and dunces take possession of colleges; and scholarships and fellowships are bought and sold, as horses in Smithfield. But I hope you are grown fat in the country, for there is not such corruption there, as there is among the Muses. Mr. P. I will deal plainly with you. I staid in the University of Oxford, till I was forced to leave it for want of subsistance. I stood for three or four several scholarships, and though I was found upon examination sufficient, yet I do seriously protest, that one time I was prevented by half a buck, and some good wine, that was sent up, to make the fellows merry; and, another time, a great lady's letter prevailed against all ability of parts, and endowments whatsoever; a third time, the warden of the college had a poor kinsman, and so he got the major part of the fellows on his side, for fear, and flattery, that there were no hopes to swim against so great a stream; and so I was forced to retreat into the country, and there turn first an usher, and at last was made curate, under a great prebend, and a double-beneficed rich A a man, where I found promises beyond performances; for my salary was inferior by much to his cook, or his coachman, nay, his barber had double my stipend; for I was allowed but eight pounds per annum, and get my own victuals, cloaths, and books as I could; and when I told him the means were too little, he said that, if I would not, he could have his cure supplied by another, rather for less than what I had; and so I was yoaked to a small pittance, for the space of twelve years. Mr. N. Is it possible that there should be such a concurrence of hard fortunes? It was no otherwise in our university, when I stood for preferment; for, at first, a lawyer's son had the scholarship, because his father had done some business for the college at common law; and a doctor of physick's son was preferred in my place to a fellowship, because his father had cured the master's wife of a tympany; and so, finding all hopes gone there, I went home to my friends, and, within a while after, I was made a minister, and served a cure. Mr. P. Where, I pray you, is your charge? Mr. N. It is in a little poor parish, hard by Pinchback, in Lincolnshire, where the churchwarden is scarce able to give the minister more than a barley bag-pudding to his Sunday's dinner. Where are you placed? Mr. P. I serve a cure hard by Hungerford, in Wiltshire; where my allowance is so short, that, was it not more for conscience to be in this my calling, I had rather be a cobler, and sit and mend old shoes. Mr. N. I protest, I think we curates are worse dealt withal by the rich double beneficed-men, than the children of Israel were by the Egyptians; for, though they made them work hard, yet they allowed them straw, and other materials, and good victuals; for they longed after the flesh-pots of Egypt, which proves they had them a long time; but we are forced to work, and yet can get nothing; and yet these should be either fathers or brethren to us, but they were enemies to them; and yet they dealt better with them, than these do with us. Mr. P. They deal as badly with us, as they do with their flocks, I mean their parishioners; for they starve their souls, and pinch our bodies. Mr. N. I wonder how these lip-parsons would do, should there be but once a general consent of all the curates to forbear to preach or read prayers but for one three weeks, or a month only, how they would be forced to ride for it, and yet all in vain; for how can one person supply two places at one time, twenty miles distance? Mr. P. By my consent they should have, for every benefice, a wife; they should have variety of pleasure, as well as of profit; but, withal, I think that course would quickly weary their bodies and purses too. Mr. N. Wives! oh strange! no, I would not live to see that day, for, if they be so fearfully covetous, having but one, I wonder what they would be, having so many. • Cambridge. Mr. P. Oh, Sir, I tell you, they might, by this course, in time stand in no need of curates, nor clarks neither; for, if they could speak as much in the church as at home, they might serve the turn; and they are all masters of art, to gather up the small tithes and Easterbook, as well as the clark. Mr. N. Nay, now since we are fallen upon it, I will tell you, our parson hath a living in London, as well as here, and his wife is so miserably proud, that both livings will scarce suffice to maintain her; insomuch, that she takes out of the curate's wages, as, half of every funeral sermon, and out of all burials, churchings, weddings, christenings, &c. she hath half duties, to buy lace, pins, gloves, fans, blackbags, sattin petticoats, &c. and towards the maintenance of a puny servitor to go before her; nay, she pays half towards the maintenance of a coach, which she either gets from her husband, or else from the curate, by subtracting his allowance at the quarter-day; and, what is more, she made her curate in London to enter into bond privately to her husband, to leave the place at half a year's warning; or else her husband, the parson of the place, would not have granted him a license for the place. Mr. P. Oh strange! Is it possible, that this old remainder of popery should be yet upheld by our clergy, to have such Pope Joans to rule the church. I have heard say, there are three places in which a woman never should bear any sway; the buttery, the kitchen, and the church; for women are too covetous by nature to keep a good house; and too foolish to rule a church. Mr. N. Alas! Master Needham, there is a necessity in this, for I think our parson hath scarce wit enough to do it; and though he had, yet his wife's tongue would put him out of his wits, if he should not let her have her will. Mr. P. What care I how she punished him, so that she did not intrench upon our liberties; but, alas! she breaks her husband's back, and pinches our bellies. Mr. N. Such a piece of correction hath our parson too; for I bought one new cloke in six years, and that money too was given me in legacy by a good parishioner; and she, oh how she envied my felicity, and informed her husband, that I waxed proud; and advised him to get another in my place. Mr. P. Is it possible! and yet our she-regent is not unlike her; for she frets fearfully to hear that a worthy gentleman, who lives in the parish, loves me so much; it gauls her to the quick, if the parishioners, out of their loves, give me any thing to mend my salary; oh she thinks all is lost that goes beside her hands! Mr. N. Well, but what does your great parson with all his wealth? Does he keep good hospitality? Or is he charitable to the poor, what's his name? Dr. Proud. Mr. P. Alas nothing less; he weareth cassocks of damask, and plush, good beavers, and silk stockings: can play well at tables, or gleek, can hunt well, and bowl very skilfully; is deeply experienced in • Gown. racy canary, and can relish a cup of right claret; and 'so passeth the time away what is your great overseer's name? Mr. N. Dr. Harding. What goodness lodgeth in his corpse? Mr. P. Little or none, he is worse than yours; for he never comes to visit his parish, but, horse-leech like, he sucks them; he loves preying better than praying, and forces his parish to humility, by oppressing them; he was a main projector for two shillings and nine-pence in the pound, and looks like a piece of reesed bacon, ever since the plot failed; he is tormented with the yellow jaundice, and a wanton wife, which, like two incarnate devils, will force him to believe a hell before he comes thither. Mr. N. It is no great matter; it is but just that he, that torments others, should taste the same sauce himself. Mr. P. I will tell you what his custom is, when he comes amongst us; he neither prays, nor preaches; the one I think he will not, the other I fear he cannot perform. Mr. N. Oh strange! how came he then by such livings? Mr P. Easily enough, for it is money that makes the parson's horse to go now a-days †, for they may say to parsons, as it hath been of old said of books, quanti emisti hunc? Mr. N. I will assure you, I am afraid he is discontented at our church government, as well as many other great parsons; for they force and strictly enjoin their curates to read all divine service, which they never do themselves. Mr. P. It is a strange world, that they should flourish and flow in wealth for doing nothing, and the poor curates, that do all, can get nothing; I will tell you truly, he has not given his parish a sermon these three quarters of a year. Mr. N. I wonder how they can answer the canon, which enjoins them to preach once a month. Mr. P. Pish, what do you talk to them of the canons; they, who can make new ones, think they may slight the old ones; their canons are like those laws which caught flies, but could not hold hornets or great bees; they are the curates, who are set to be cannoniers: these endure the heat of the day, of this once or twice a-day preaching; alas! they say, as the priests did once to Judas, What is that to us? See you to that.' Mr. N. You speak truth, and I will maintain it, that our doctor differs not much from the weathercock on the church steeple; for as it is placed highest, says nothing, is sounding brass, or some such metal, and turns as the wind; so he rules all the parish, seldom preaches, is void of charity, and turns in his courses every time? for sometimes he is all for ceremony, sometimes indifferent, sometimes against them; he hath made a terrible combustion, where and how to place the Lord's table; it stood in the church, anon it must be advanced into the quire; then it must be east and west, and presently after north and south, covered, uncovered, railed, without rails, of this fashion, of that, of this wood, of another; nay, he himself, who was the first that altered it, hath now, within this month or two, altered his opinion, and placed it again in the body of the church: oh fine weathercock! • Rector. + These cert nly were sad days, when the word of God was set to sale. |